Page 5 of Sky in the Deep
Whatever Kalda was thinking, her face didn’t betray it. “I can still fight,” I said. It wasn’t a question. And she had treated me after battle enough times to know it.
Mýra sighed beside me, though it looked as if she was enjoying it a little. I shot my eyes to her before she could say a word.
“That’s your decision.” Kalda looked up at me through her dark eyelashes.
It wasn’t the first time she had stitched me up and it wouldn’t be the last. But the only time she’d ever told me I couldn’t fight was when I broke two ribs. I’d waited five years to avenge Iri in my second fighting season and I spent a monthof it sitting in the camp, cleaning weapons and seething with anger while my father and Mýra went out into battle without me.
“It won’t stay closed if you’re using your axe.” Kalda dropped the needle into the bowl beside her before wiping her hands on her bloodstained apron.
I stared back at her. “I have to use my axe.”
“Use a shield in that hand.” Mýra glowered, flinging a hand toward me.
“I don’t use a shield,” I bit back at her. “I use a sword in my right and an axe in my left. You know that.” Changing the way I fought would only get me killed.
Kalda sighed. “Then when you tear it open again you’ll have to come back and let me restitch it.”
“Fine.” I stood, pulling my sleeve back down over my swollen arm and trying not to let the wince show on my face.
The Aska man waiting behind us sat down on the stool and Kalda got to work on the cut carved into his cheek. “I heard Sigr honored you today.” He was a friend of my father’s. Everyone was.
“He did,” Mýra said through a traitorous smile. She loved to see me embarrassed.
I didn’t know what to say.
He reached up with his fist, tapping me on my good shoulder with his big knuckles as I reached for his shoulder and did the same.
We ducked out of the foul smell of the tent and walkedthrough camp as the sky grew warm with the setting sun and my stomach growled at the smell of supper cooking over flames. My father was waiting for me in front of our fire.
“See you in the morning.” Mýra squeezed my hand before she broke off from me.
“Maybe,” I said, watching her walk to her tent. I wasn’t convinced the Riki wouldn’t be back before the sun rose.
My father stood with his arms folded over his chest, staring down into the fire. He had washed his hands and face, but I could still see the blood and dirt clinging to the rest of him.
“Taken care of?” His bushy eyebrows lifted up.
I nodded, raising my scabbard over my head. He unbuckled the axe sheath on my back and took my arm into his hands, inspecting it.
“It’s fine,” I said. He didn’t worry about me often, but I could see it when he did.
He pushed the unruly hair back from my face. I was an Aska warrior, but I was still his daughter. “You look more like your mother every day. Are you ready?”
I gave him a tired smile. If my father believed Sigr sent Iri’s soul to me, I could believe it too. I was too afraid of any other truth that lingered in the back of my thoughts. “Ready.”
We walked side by side to the other end of the camp. I could feel the eyes on me, but my father paid our clansmen no attention, putting me at ease. The meeting tent that served as our ritual house sat at the end of our encampment with white smoke trailing up into the evening sky from its center. Espen stood like an enormous statue beneath its frame, theTala beside him. Our clan’s leader was the greatest of our warriors, the oldest Aska leader in three generations. He lifted his chin, his fingers pulling at his long beard.
“Aghi.” He called to my father from where he stood.
My father pulled three coins from his vest and handed them to me. He walked toward them, grasping Espen’s shoulder in greeting, and Espen did the same before he spoke. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his eyes found me over my father’s shoulder, making me feel suddenly unsteady.
“Eelyn.”
I jolted. Hemming was waiting at the gate of the pen.
I pressed the coins into his open hand and he dropped them into the heavy purse hanging from his belt.
He smiled up at me, one tooth missing from the front of his mouth where he was kicked by a horse two winters ago. “I heard what happened.” He stepped over the wall of the pen and grabbed a pale gray goat by the horns. “This one okay?”
